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Topic: Over the Limit (Read 3099 times)

I really have a beekeeping problem. The hive numbers were set to 5 then 10 and now after 2 swarms from a hive, there are 12, or 13 with the hive I'm babysitting. We are just about out of supers. This time last year we had 4 hives. :'( I think I'll write poetry and give up beekeeping. I've gone from debating with the council to 4 possible town sites. And for the first time in my little beekeeping life, all the hives are strong and bearding ready for movember. The problem is...I'm sick of painting! :ninja:

I had to talk about swarms with my mentor extensively today, because this is the first time I've ever had a hive swarm. When I've watched JP's videos, it's been from a distant interest; now I might have to go back and take notes. :needhelp:

.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

I had to talk about swarms with my mentor extensively today, because this is the first time I've ever had a hive swarm. When I've watched JP's videos, it's been from a distant interest; now I might have to go back and take notes. :needhelp:

Lone

This happened to me earlier in the season had about 3 swarms from my own hives , one thing i did notice was i had queens from 2 different breeders, carniolians and Italians it seems it was the carnies that did all the swarming , they seem to build up faster , the Italians were fine and are going well, the jury is still out on which type of bee i will use, i got to weigh it all up i think if you want to build up your numbers then carnies seem to be the way to go, but i want honey and swarming and honey dont go hand in hand.

Good luck with the painting you could consider plastic hives if you dont want the painting? re Neil

Being mainly newer hives, I certainly haven't seen tonnes of honey. Italians are building up fine. The mates had carnies and went back to italians for that reason. We extracted about 8 frames in the last 6 or more months. I haven't sold a single thing to pay for this hobby let alone a paint gun hahaha I am thinking of buying (grr and painting) a few nuc boxes to make splits to sell. Haven't started on that though. Thanks for the tips Bailey, though I really think it would be better if you just painted them for me.

Going to check the first swarm in a minute. Ironically I was at the bee club meeting when the neighbour called, and the offsider and Nico hived it. They said it was about 30x50cm and put it into two 10 frame boxes. Does anyone else use this much space for a swarm? Do they build out the foundation all right? They put in a couple of drawn frames too.

When I first started beekeeping in the tropics, not quiet as far north as Townsville, my mentor was a beek who had been keeping bees for over 50 yrs (around 80 to 90 hives). He had experimented considerably towards swarm prevention and for many years used a top board as per the below picture. When the temperature started to get up in spring and summer and the bees started to beard he would lift the lid by placing a 10mm riser under each end of the lid thus lowering the humidy and allowing the bees to keep the hive cooler. He would place a sheet of galvanized roofing iron (cut to a size to give the hive some shade and protection from the rain) over the top cover and due to the way it was built there was a gap to allow air between the cover and the sheet of roofing iron and place a rock on top of the iron to keep it there.

For what it is worth I have been using these top covers for the past 30 yrs and have had minimal swarms and generally that was my fault by not extracting the honey or giving them more room.

Our unintentional swarm control in the past has been to have weak and dying hives! I think the swarms came from the hive in which 4 beekpeepers from the club couldn't find the queen when I was requeening in October. It has always been a productive brood queen (from a frame of eggs I was given to save my last dying hive). I saw 5 or so chewed out queen cells on the bottom of a frame and assumed the swarms were from this hive. Its partner hive has a younger queen, and if it holds true that a queen won't swarm in her first year, they probably weren't from that one.

We do use all migratory lids. Some use a square of black plastic or lino on the frames during winter but I haven't done that. The lids have 4 ventilation holes which the bees regulate with propolis. If you lift the lid 10mm wouldn't bees spill out everywhere and doesn't it let the rain in? Most hives are under a shelter facing morning sun, a couple are fully shaded under a tree, and I really should have put a bit of iron over the ones in full sun but I think the worst of the heat is over. We've had a decent lot of rain in the last few days though. Humidity is generally not quite as bad here as on the coast.

As I mentioned we have never had a lot of honey to extract so we haven't had the problem of a hive filled with honey. Probably 80% of frames are drawn in all the honey supers and just about filled with honey, but I'd guess they are not capping it off till the flow subsides.

The first swarm is doing pretty good. There is capped brood and plenty of eggs and drawn comb in the bottom super.

I think I will need to read up more on swarm control in the coming year.

Strange enough they do not spill out or use it as another entrance. I have seen the hive still bearding and yet the gap at the top remains just that. I have no problems with rain getting in, talking about rain we have had two days of sunshine in last three weeks and on one of those days I managed to extract.

I stack my supers. Then, instead of paint (I hate peeling paint) I use rosewood oil, sikkens cetol or thompsons water seal (seems like I've always got some leftover from some project or other). I thin the oil with a little paint thinner and load up a spray bottle (like the ones you would use to mist house plants). No brush to clean, great crack penetration. Bottle usually doesn't work the best the following year but they're cheap. Did I mention I hate cleaning brushes?

I thought things were running strangely smoothly for a while. The 2 swarms were next to a pair of hives and after seeing eaten swarm cells in the older hive I assumed both swarms were from there. So I didn't check the brood of the hive with a barely year old queen until a few days ago and voila, queenless and no brood. The older hive had only a few eggs which I "borrowed" for the queenless one, and my mentor said to check in 5 or 6 days to see if they are bringing out a queen cell and add more brood then. That will be tomorrow. Crikey, how does anyone manage to survive the ravages of swarms? :thunder:

By the way, I'm a commercial beekeeper from today. A lady sold honey and wax for me at the market and when I went by at 1130 she had sold one jar of honey and one wax stick. I bought a bottle of mango sauce from her and so far have a 50c loss. :-\

I checked the queenless hive for queen cells last week..and none. So we added another frame of eggs and while looking in the hives for eggs to lend, found another hive with capped brood but no eggs! Checked again today and both hives have queen cells so they escaped a newspaper combine. I wonder if we've had a few autumn swarms leave the hives in a sorry state.

I fill for you Lone. Last year I had 3 hives and some shallow supers for them. Then in 7 days I caught 6 swarms in the yard at my house. I ran out of boxes to put them in. I put one in a single shallow super. I had a TBH that I had built a couple of years ago, it did have frames not just the top bar, but no foundation, I put one in it. The ones I keep all built comb and I got some honey off them before the season was over. There were 2 swarms I didn't have a box for so I called a fellow that had been at that months bee meeting, that had lost his and gave those him. I have several supers ready if that happens this year. I did sell about 18 gals. of honey from them. Had it all sold within a couple of months after harvest. Good luck to you and your bees.

Both of the queenless hives now have queens. We found out a week ago there is a surprise honey flow on. Iron bark, chinee apple, and other honey trees are in flower. I lost count of how much we extracted, but it must have been about 6o litres. So it's not just the hive equipment we are running short on. We bought 5 more honey buckets from Bunnings the other day. We put in an order for more gear also, but they told me it's easier and cheaper for me to make the lids and bottom boards. You can just picture me sanding and painting, painting and sanding.....

We checked a hive or two on Sunday and they're filling them up again. In fact, on the extraction day, I put plain foundations back in the hives till we had some stickies. The next day I checked one hive and three plain foundations had been fully drawn overnight. Things are going so well, I am waiting for the usual disasters that beset my beekeeping experience. That will fill the next diary entry, to be sure!

yes there is some great flows around at the moment .dropped some four days ago and went back with another load :shock: there all full the first lot. the second :police:load i dropped had a full frame by the time i left in the afternoon. if only i had more gear hmmmm hmmmmmmm